Hanover, NH—At the much-anticipated annual Match Day event, 103 students at Dartmouth's Geisel School of medicine learned where they will start their residency training after graduation. Nationally, more than 17,400 graduating medical school students participated in this year's match program.

"I couldn't be more proud of our students," says Wiley W. Souba, MD, MBA, ScD, dean of the Geisel School of Medicine. "I know that as they begin their residencies across the U.S., they will be superb physicians and great leaders."

Every year, fourth-year medical students submit their top choices for residency programs into a computer program operated by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC). Residency programs also submit lists of applicants in their order of preference. The lists are then compared against each other utilizing the AAMC's computer algorithm, matching students to their residency program.

Reflecting a national trend this year, primary care (family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics) was the most popular specialty choice among Geisel students, with 44 choosing to go into that field. Emergency medicine and anesthesiology were next most popular specialties, with 12 and 9 students respectively. Massachusetts was the most popular destination, followed by New York, California and Pennsylvania.

The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, founded in 1797, strives to improve the lives of the communities it serves through excellence in learning, discovery, and healing. The nation's fourth-oldest medical school, the Geisel School of Medicine has been home to many firsts in medical education, research and practice, including the discovery of the mechanism for how light resets biological clocks, creating the first multispecialty intensive care unit, the first comprehensive examination of U.S. health care variations (The Dartmouth Atlas), and helping establish the first Center for Health Care Delivery Science, which launched in 2010. As one of America's top medical schools, Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine is committed to training new generations of diverse health care leaders who will help solve our most vexing challenges in health care.